“October 12th, 1876.
“My dear Miss Cobbe,
“Many thanks for your book. You will see by my letter last night that I had already made good progress in it; as borrowed from the Library. I shall much value it.
Do not trouble yourself about Newman’s letter. I am much more anxious that the public should see it than that I should. I am amazed at the impression made upon me by the “Characteristics” of Newman. Most of the selections I had read before; but the net result is of a farrago of fanciful, disingenuous nonentities; all except the personal reminiscences.
“Yours truly,
“A. P. Stanley.”
One day I had been calling on him at the Deanery, and said to him, after describing my office in Victoria Street and our frequent Committee meetings there: “Now Mr. Dean, do you think it right and as it ought to be, that I should sit at that table as Hon. Sec. with Lord Shaftesbury on my right, and Cardinal Manning on my left,—and that you should not sit opposite to complete the “Reunion of Christendom?” He laughed heartily, agreed he certainly ought to be there, and promised to come. But time failed, and only his honoured name graced our lists.
The following is the last letter I have preserved of Dean Stanley’s writing. It is needless to say how much pleasure it gave me:—
“October 16th, 1876.
“Dear Miss Cobbe,